No, THIS Is A Tank: End Of Nations

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I like playing the game: Guess The Genre From The Title. Although sometimes it’s just too easy. The freshly announced End Of Nations is an real-time strategy purely by its having three words in its title, one of them being “Of”. If it were called “Nations’ End”, then it would be a much harder round. That could be almost anything. But shock twist! It’s an MMO too. And you were so smug about it, too.

Pleasingly topical, the story is triggered by the economic collapse in the early 21st century, bearing a new organisation to rise up against the ensuing anarchy, the Order Of Nations. But they’re not very nice. Which means it’s time for revolution. And some really big tanks.

The CGI trailer below clearly doesn’t indicate any potential game content, but it does have one bloody huge tank taller than buildings. And suggests the game will take over all over the planet in real-world settings. And it’s a persistent real world, with at least 51 players all working together (apparently) on one map to defeat this evil Order, amongst thousands of players on a server. You have a Commander, build your troops, and fight the good, rebellious fight. From this it suggests an MMO where everyone is on the same side, which is a nice idea. Oh, that and it’s an RTS MMO, which is a genre blur that’s yet to be done successfully (unless I’m forgetting something obvious – like I have the faintest clue about RTS games).

Those Bolo’s sound sexy, though designing a tank so huge and nasty that it can defend an entire planet seems like a bad idea. Even designing a tank as big as the one in this trailer doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but I guess there are scenarios where super-massive vehicles make sense. For instance if massive fusion plants et al allow impenetrable shields, or if you can develop an armor that actually has a worthwhile weight -to- protection ratio.

Personally I’d rather have an aircraft carrier fleet. . . . Okay, flying aircraft carrier fleet. Even the devil’s advocate has to dream.

They’re making a new edition of the boardgame. IIRC it’ll be a deluxe edition with counters for most of the units and a slot-together 3D ogre that looks pretty awesome from the few photos shown of an early, primitive playtest version, and apparently is far better than it looks.

Sadly, the company’s non-Munchkin lines are being subsidised by Munchkin, so, well, buy Munchkin to support it. ;_; Or the Ogre Miniatures rules which they recently released an updated PDF copy of. Or anything else non-Munchkin, I guess.

I stopped playing when it went from a free to play to a pay for priviledge system. Also, they implemented a cycle where if you grind to max and reincarnate you can then get a +1 somewhere ad nauseam. That grindfest was a bit of a turnoff.

It is so sad that Goliath became an IGF winner, and then promptly stopped all development and fell off the face of the earth. Another six months and it could have been a full-length, seriously great game.

Did not see that post. Yes, it was truely excellent, even if i could never get the multiplayer working. Deep, asymmetrical, epic battlefield style wars. Take a jeep with an mg and swat down the recon drones while evading artillary fire or set up in a converted fire truck for counter battery fire. Epic

This would be a lot more interesting if one player were a malevolent AI evolved from a GPS assistant controlling the landship in with tank/sub/boat sim controls, and everyone else were trying to stop them from destroying everything.

As it is it looks a bit rubbish. Maybe it’s just that I absolutely hate RTSes.

@Magic H8 Ball: Persistent-destruction maps? I’d say maybe 3 hours after release every city would be rubble. After 24 hours, most of the countryside will be destroyed. After 48 hours the entire planet’s crust would begin apocalyptic upheaval by the sustained bombardment. Finally, after 52 hours the game world would be reduced to a blackened, dusty cinder the size of Milton Keynes, incapable of supporting life as we know it.